Policy Paper On How Evidence Based Policy Making Is Changing The Nature And Operation Of The Policy Environment Within The Home Office

The pre-eminence of the so-called Evidence Based Policy Making (EBPM) within policy circles of the UK Government continues to be a source of heated debate. This paper attempts to first define the EBPM and then sketches the factors which have ontributed to its incorporation into mainstream policy circles. The second part of the paper presents a succinct analysis drawing upon a variety of examples, of how the EBPM is being applied within the policy environment of the Home Office. It is found that the EBPM has certainly permeated the activities of the Home Office; however, because the activities of the organization are so varied, just as the stakeholders involved, it is difficult if not impossible to make generalizations about the consequences of the introduction of the EBPM for the organization’s activities and its stakeholders.
Evidence Based Policy Making (EBPM) can be defined as a policy feature which is based on the premise that evidence, mainly in the form of research and empirical knowledge, acts as a useful ingredient for the policy design and implementation processes. According to Bullock et al. (2001) integrating evidence is a key characteristic of modern policy making process, which includes activities such as reviewing and making use of existing evidence, evaluating new policies, commissioning new research and involving experts when devising policies in specialist areas.
The application of EBPM in recent years can be traced back to the early 1990s, when it was primarily confined to the fields of medicine and healthcare services (Boaz et al., 2002; Naughton, 2005; Nutley and Davies, 1999 ). In the realm of wider public policy on the other hand, it was only in the late 1990s, namely when the New Labour Government took office, that the usefulness of evidence was re-instated as a key pillar of the ‘post-ideological’ politics typical of the new government. It is particularly important to note how EBPM was an integral part of the intention to modernize the government and the methods underlying the provision of public services (Boaz et al., 2002; Bullock et al., 2001; Flynn, 2002; Nutley et al., 2002).
As argued by Solesbury (2001) there are two more factors which led to the introduction of the EBPM. The first of these consists of the rise of the utilitarian research funding policy, whereby research becomes tailored to the needs of the public and useable by them; secondly, one needs to consider also the weakening of the public trust in the expertise of professionals and the simultaneous fact that there now exists a better informed electorate as opposed to other times, in which case the EBPM has been promoted as a means of ensuring that what is being prioritized as a policy is proven to be ‘scientifically’ worthwhile (Bullock et al., 2001; Davies et al., 2004a; Solesbury 2001).
EBPM implies that that evidence plays a crucial role in all stages of the policy making process or cycle, namely in the way agendas are shaped and put forth, in the definition of relevant issues, in the identification of policy options and taking appropriate courses of action, in institutionalizing delivery mechanisms and in the monitoring of the impacts of the preferred policies (Solesbury, 2001). In implementing the EBPM as part of the modernization agenda, the Government has also increased the level of funding for research in the various departments and provided space for a ‘joined up’ course of action between and across departments on public policy issues.
Once the key characteristics of the EPBM movement have been summarised it is now imperative to consider how this trend has influenced the activities of one of the main public policy units, namely the Home Office. It will be discovered that evidence is now an overriding element in the policy environment of the organization, but the extent to which it has been applied and the level of its influence is variable from one activity to another. The Home Office’s main functions cover issues related to justice, police, prisons, law and order, public safety, immigration and race (Budge et al., 2004) and key stakeholders in public services in general include professionals and other employees, the public, service users and citizens and other specific sectoral service providers (Joyce, 2001) all of which are applicable to case of the Home Office.
In terms of research the Home Office has its own Research and Development and statistics Directorate, which essentially provides information to ministers and policymakers as well as other policy stakeholders such as police force, probation services, the courts and immigration officials (Davies et al., 2004b). One of the policy areas falling under the remit of the Home Office, in which there has been extensive ‘modernization’ work and subsequently a widespread use of evidence is that of drug misuse, whereby a shift towards greater central control by the Home Office has been accompanied by the creation of supporting Research and Development Units also called Drug Action Teams: more specifically in 2001 the so-called “New Drug Strategy Directorate” was established within the Home Office itself (Nutley et al., 2002).
Similarly one other area in which there has been a tendency to incorporate EBPM has been probation services, which has included the adoption of new practices to deal with offenders, alongside the use of existing evidence and studies (Nutley and Davies, 1999). The Crime Reduction Programme (CRP) is another prominent example of how the UK Government under Tony Blair has been making EBPM part of the mainstream policymaking process within key public sector organizations. The CRP has been conducted with large sums of research investment so that different crime prevention option strategies would be studied and experimented in practice (Nutley and Davies, 2004). Furthermore, the manner in which the programme has been institutionalized demonstrates not only the utilization of a pre- existing extensive crime reduction research base as part of the EBMP, but also the joint-up effect of the modernizing agenda, since the project was centrally planned but delivered locally and with clear operational linkages with other similar initiatives (Homel et al., 2004; Nutley and Davies, 2004).
However, one major policy area in which there has been limited success at integrating evidence with policy practice is Immigration. It is important pointing out that the Home Office has been attempting to adopt the EBPM approach in this major activity as well, mainly in relation to the Refugees Integration Strategy: this was launched in 2000 with the specific aim to proactively engage and integrate the asylum seeking community into the economy and culture of Britain. However, the lack of an organized set of evidence and research base has been a major obstacle in this regard (Schibel et al., 2002) as well as the fact that immigration remains a highly and continuously policitized state of affairs, overly dependent upon global and political pressures (Silverman, 2005).
In conclusion therefore, it can be said that the EBPM has entered mainstream policy making circles including the Home Office, which has had to adapt its operational strategies accordingly by investing large sums of money into research and development, by centralizing the coordination of its core activities and by joining up with other key Government departments in policy design and implementation. However, as reiterated by most analysts there is no general agreement as to how well EBPM is driving a homogeneous change in general: in the Home Office case, Immigration Policies testify this fact, in spite of a significant level of consolidation of the particular approach in other areas such as criminal justice and probation services.